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Ellen: I'm Lingít and my Lingít name is Kakéin Shee, Lingít is a tribe of Southeast Alaska.

Ellen: I guess I'm a professional skier, but I'm super not professional.

Paddy: What do you mean by that?

Ellen: I don't throw tricks. But also just like as a person, I would say I'm not a very professional person. But I do get paid to ski. So this is my job I'm also a scientist. Right now. I'm not being paid to be a scientist, so I'm not a professional scientist

Paddy: I Will Venmo you $1 and it'll just say for science.

Ellen: That's on pause because I had quit my last job with the intentions of going back to it very quickly after I finished my film. That was two years ago and my film only just finished. So, , we'll see what comes next

MUSIC

INTRO PADDYO VO:

I. Am. Slllllloooow. At a molecular level, I am incapable of moving my body fast. I don't think anyone has ever looked at the 6'5" 250 pounds of my man flesh and thought "Wow, I bet he moves like a ballerino." Mostly, I think folks wonder [00:01:00] how many pieces of furniture I bump into while I'm trying to leave the house. And when I get outside, especially when I am lumbering uphill, my trudging movements are even more labored. My chest feels like I've swallowed a campfire and I sound like an athsmatic elk.

And yet, I still somehow move fast enough to miss the little things, even on my favorite, most visited trails. Just the other week, my wife and I took our newborn daughter on her first hike on a trail I've zipped up and down countless times. But, we cranked our hiking speed down to "move slow as all get out so this baby naps," aaaaand it was like I'd never stepped foot on the trail before. The trees looked bigger, the smells were more fragrent, the lichen on the rocks seemed to glow. It was...incredible.

And I wondered what my time outside [00:02:00] might look like, FEEL like if I actually moved with a measured, meaningful pace. Well, that kind of relationship with the outdoors might resemble that of my pal, Ellen Bradley.

PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE

Ellen is...well, Ellen is a lot of things; a Lingít, a pro skier, an avid trail runner, a scientist, the better half of a skiing and activist power couple - Connor Ryan, you know it's true. She is also a partner in several efforts to get more Native people on skis, like the Native Youth Snow Sports Camp she helps run in Juneau, Alaska, near her tribal homelands. In part, that is what her new film, Let My People Go Skiing, is all about. But the film is also an examination of the suprising affects that a "go slow" mentality of mountain movement can have on a person's relationship and connection to the outdoors, to the land, especially [00:03:00] as a way to heal a longheld sense of displacement.

Turns out, moving slowly is the fastest way to get back home.

MUSIC

Paddy: First things first, burnt toast. Ellen, what's your last humbling and or hilarious moment? �����ԹϺ���?

Ellen: I feel like I've had a lot. But the last one was, we went out to ski and we were just doing these really quick laps on birthed pass. , and it snowed so much and we went to a zone that we didn't see any tracks in.

it's a very short tour, but like very steep tour and halfway up the tour, I'm looking down at my bindings and they are moving like the toe piece is just jiggling back and forth

And we get to the top when Connor pulls out his little, , leatherman and tries to fix 'em, but we can't figure out even what screw it is to tighten. And I was like survival skiing, just to be cautious. I don't really wanna lose a ski on this and have to go find it.

and I get to the bottom and everyone's like, that was so fun.

We wanna do another. And I had to go sit in the parking lot where I could see them from the line, go ski, fun, pow. And it was just one of those unfortunate [00:04:00] things of like, gear miss hops happen, but it sucks when your friends are only in town for so long and the snow is perfect,

and like, I really wanted to ski with my friends, so I just gotta pull out my little camp chair and just sat next to the car and luckily I could see them, so I watched them have fun

Paddy: hey, you guys, I'm down here.

Ellen: Yep.

Paddy: Did you at least have snacks?

Ellen: I did, I had snacks. I had really good tasty snacks from Mexico. That held me over. It wasn't my most embarrassing. I've definitely had more embarrassing, but it was the most recent '

Paddy: all right. Let's get into it.

MUSIC IN THE CLEAR FOR A BEAT

Ellen: PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE

tell me what it was like to grow up in Seattle on Puget Sound. How important is the ocean to you?

Now that I'm living in a landlocked state, I really see how your landscape and where you were raised affects and molds you into the person you are. For me, growing up to the ocean, it's this limitation that I think a lot of landlocked people don't have, right?

Ellen: Like you can't just travel through Washington West forever. You're gonna hit the ocean. And that felt very [00:05:00] comforting in a way that I think to others would maybe make you feel a little bit more claustrophobic.

Paddy: Explain that.

Ellen: In comparison to people I know who've grown up around here in Colorado, for them, they feel so free in these open spaces that are the planes that like there's this expanse of land that you could travel or chase buffalo or whatever it is, forever. I often find that they feel this sense of like discomfort and claustrophobia in spaces when they're either in an ocean or a forest or a rainforest. Specifically. For me, that's where I'm from. That's where I'm comfortable in, and I think it goes beyond just growing up near Puget Sound, near Salish Sea, but also being genetically a person whose people have lived in a rainforest, surrounded by the ocean, surrounded by mountains since time in Memorial.

I need that diversity of life around me. That feels really scary when I'm in a place that it's harder to see that diversity.

PAUSE PAUSE

I can remember being at Steven's Pass on this run that's just off of, , one of the lifts Tye Mill, [00:06:00] so lookers left of the lift there's this run Shims Meadow that is like always held a really special place in my heart. And I feel like one of my first, ski memories is sitting at the top of this line, which is like one of the more open, kind of bowl-ish runs that you get into by going through the trees and just like sitting at the top of the line and looking around me and being like.

This is one of the most beautiful places I feel like I've ever seen, and feeling so engulfed in the experience of like, I am a participant in this ecosystem. And I don't even know how old I am in this memory that I have, but I just remember sitting there and being like, wow, this is how I engage with the world around me.

PAUSE PAUSE PASUE

Skiing has been a part of my life since I was four. I was really lucky to have parents who, themselves got into skiing when they were in their twenties as adults. And when they had my brother and I, they decided that this was a really important thing for them to share with us and to have it be this family activity.

So we skied as much as we could growing up, it's kind of just always been a constant in my life as an identity. I held as a skier. and I think throughout my life, [00:07:00] because of that, my relationship to skiing has shifted at different points in my life and, , specific ways I was engaging with skiing.

Paddy: Well, let's, dive into those shifts because so many things in the outdoor industry, in outdoor media are about pushing limits and going faster and going farther, but you are this advocate for the total opposite. You are a big proponent of going slowly.

Tell me about that approach.

Ellen: I wasn't always that kind of skier. I would say there's definitely still times where like I'll go ski groomers at Winter Park and I'm just skiing as fast as I can to ski out. Like see how fast I can get down a run or like what's my top speed.

Paddy: cause that is fun.

Ellen: 'cause it's super fun. But I think for me, the part of skiing that I enjoy being slow is uphill skiing.

The appreciation I've built for the uphill, for me actually really started in, , scientific research and field research in the summers, spending a lot of time in an ecosystem and not moving a lot. The more I was able [00:08:00] to apply what I knew from like scientific, hypotheses or scientific theories into how I'm interacting with the world and how that impacts my science, then I was able to see that more with my skis each experience I had in the field has just a affirmed this connection that I feel to a place when I get to spend a lot of time with it,

I think back to like the summer I studied epiphyte growth in the Hoh rainforest in the Olympic peninsula of Washington.

And we would spend an entire day in ropes harnesses 20 meters up a tree and just sitting in your harness, maybe sitting on a branch and looking at different patches of the tree and trying to identify epiphytes, so moss, liver warts or lichens. And feeling the depth of understanding and relationship you're able, able to build with that individual tree, with each of the different species growing on that tree

And then taking that into my next winter season it was one of my first like full seasons of getting into the back country and finding that on the days [00:09:00] that we were more goal oriented and just moving as fast as we can, that I never really had the ability to fully appreciate the moment in the ecosystem and the relationship that I was building.

Ellen: Then on the days when we were moving more slowly, maybe going to a zone we had been before and having less of a goal of like, this is how many laps we're gonna do today, or we're trying to get super high into the alpine, or whatever it was. That for me, those days felt more personally valuable to this relationship and understanding.

That I was interacting with through my skis.

Paddy: Is there a specific skiing memory that you have? maybe the alarms went off and it was like, dear Ellen, this is Ellen from the summer. I need you to chill out and go slow.

Ellen: Ooh. I feel like I've had a lot of those moments. One of the most memorable one was, my first time going and skiing on my homelands in Juneau, Alaska. ] , and we were filming, so of course there's this pressure while filming to get as much as we possibly can in a day ski as many lines set up as many shots. , and I remember touring up, just outside of Eagle [00:10:00] Crest, which is the small ski area outside of Juneau.

It was finally the day that was on, so much snow. yet I found these trees that I could see these different epiphyte species that I had gone to know so well in the Hoh rainforest. just barely sticking out of the trunk of the tree around the snow.

And I remember stopping and looking at it and feeling like this was the reminder from those relatives to be like, yes, there's the pressure of this moment to get as much as we possibly can filming wise and for a lack of better word, like take advantage of this good snow and the light and everything.

And there are these relatives reminding me like, you're still on the land. You're still a person. You're a person of this place and that requires something entirely different of you than maybe what you would feel anywhere else in the world. And I felt like that was a nice reminder to myself in that moment, whether or not I was able to properly explain that to everyone else I was with.

It's probably an entirely different story. Like slow down, chill out.

Just experience what this is. And that's also not to say that I don't have those days where I [00:11:00] really am just like, go, go, go. We gotta get all

Paddy: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not like a, oh, I've made this switch and now I'm perfect all the time

Ellen: Yeah, absolutely not,

Paddy: are there specific places or specific moments where that act of slowing down resulted in like a big epiphany or a big breakthrough in how you think about the world?

Ellen: One of the strongest moments was on that same first trip we did when we were. Filming and there's this ridge line at the top of Eagle Crest you can see into Juneau, 'cause it's on Douglas Island, which is across the way from Juneau, surrounded by the ocean.

And on the right day, which there aren't a lot of the right days in a rainforest because it's usually pretty cloudy and snowy or rainy. , but on the right day you can see down to the ocean below you and across to the next island, which is Xutsnoowú Ḵwáan , which is the island my family is from. And, in Xootsnoowú and Angoon, , was one of a very few amount of times that the United States Navy or any armed forces have bombed its own, in quotes, its own people, uh, with the bombardment of Angoon.

It was our first time on the ridge line in Juneau. We had [00:12:00] perfect sunny conditions. The sunset was about to go off and be one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen in my entire life. And of course, 'cause we're filming the crew's like, we need you to skin faster, we need to get to the top, we need to dropping in perfect sunset light.

In a lot of ways the land forced me to slow down in this moment, but I slowed down and I just lost, it was just sitting at the top of this line, bawling my eyes out and had the people in the group being like, you need to just ski. And these are all my very close friends, and I would tell any of this to any of them and we would laugh about it now.

Ellen: but everyone was like, you just need to ski the light's perfect. Like this is the perfect line. You need to ski this now. And I'm just sitting there at the top of this line, just like an emotional wreck. Yes, other Lingíts had been on this ridge line.

Yes, other Lingíts had skied or snowboarded and been in this space. But for me to be there in this moment and for me to be looking across at the island that my family is from, and to know what has happened, to know what has happened in Juneau and on Douglas Island, and to know everything that this ridge Ridgeline has had to witness throughout history of the dispossession of my [00:13:00] people, of these lands, of these places, the land holds that.

And I felt like in that moment, because I slowed down, I was able to, for a moment, hold onto that pain for the land. for me, It was this really beautiful reminder of . Yes. When we're in these spaces, like we can choose to be better humans interacting with the world, we can choose to acknowledge and take accountability for the impacts that we have.

But we can also be out there to be a witness to the land. To the land as it exists, as we can see it, but also in its own emotional state and what it's experiencing. Being in witness of others and whatever emotional space they're in, and being able to hold onto that for a moment for others is like what it means to be a good relative.

Paddy: Did you feel like you were able to. Give the land your relatives like a bit of relief because you could hold it for a moment before continuing upward or, or, or dropping in.

Did it feel like too much of a burden and you had to give it back?

Ellen: My crying and my, like going through the own emotional experience for myself of what [00:14:00] that felt like. I feel like in a lot of ways like released it some of it, I think the land continues to know and holds onto what has happened there. I made this promise to the land. I said, I will see you again. we're gonna rewrite the story here.

And we're gonna tell this future story of like, native people are back and we're here and we're experiencing things with you the things we're experiencing may not always just be this awesome, stoked, best, pow day ever Feeling. Some of it may be hard, but the promise is that like, we will be here and we will experience it with you.

Paddy: What an exceptionally powerful moment on this ridge line my assumption is, after you compose yourself, , and you go to ski, what did skiing feel

Ellen: Oh my gosh. I, I was honestly not that composed when I was told I had to drop in.

Paddy: It's like are you still like crying? And you're like, okay, three, two, really.

Ellen: A hundred percent. Still crying, like race to transition, all these things like I'm being yelled at. You need to drop now. [00:15:00] Um, I'm like crying.

Paddy: so much like, this is so heavy.

Ellen: Oh my gosh, it was so bad. I was crying so hard. And it is like genuinely the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen in my entire life. In, in the film there's one small segment of that, part of me dropping into the sunset,

and the funniest thing about it is like, We are filming both video and stills at the same time. yes, the sunset was gorgeous. This small scene we were able to include in the movie is powerful. It's awesome. But me skiing that I'm like the most, chicken winged?

I've ever been skiing.

Paddy: Your arms are just full out,

Ellen: just like my left elbow is just like up in the air and I've always been so,

Paddy: you were like wiping your like snotty tears, like off on your jacket while you're turning or

Ellen: just think I was like, so in this emotional state that I was like not focused on the fact that I was skiing on camera. I've been so embarrassed about that photo that I like never want to share it with anyone. It's a gorgeous photo, scenery wise. But skiing wise, I'm like, I hate my form in this. And I think we even cut the [00:16:00] scene in the film before you can see my elbow really get all the way out there.

PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE

Paddy: So would you say then the perspective shift is still kind of finding its way into these non snow activities,

Ellen: When it comes to trail running, yes. I am a trail runner, which means I walk like 90% of the time,

Paddy: Yeah, totally. Yeah. Or power. Power hike.

Ellen: a big power hiker. Especially living in altitude in Colorado when I grew up near sea level my whole life, like my genetics are not meant to be at this altitude.

When it comes to trail running, I am in a place where I'm really trying to figure out how to be more present in that space. There's something that feels really different to me when it comes to uphill skiing by yourself and trail running by yourself.

I do not feel as present while I'm trail running as I do when I'm uphill skiing. It is something that I see a lot of value in. And I do really enjoy being on these trails in the summer. I haven't been able to find myself feeling as connected and in space while I'm [00:17:00] trail running.

Paddy: What about when you go out there with, , like say a group, do you feel like you have such a pull towards this, , go slow perspective that you voice it now ,

Ellen: I think it depends on the group and the, it depends on the day. ' cause I definitely find myself in particular groups where I'm like, all right, we're just going as fast as we can today and this is the plan. so I think it shifts and I, I've been trying to be better about seeing the value in having different kinds of days or different intentions for days in the mountain.

and also being okay with like, the groups you find yourself in can fulfill different purposes some groups I go out with, I really am like, this is about socializing, we're talking on the uphill. , and other groups or other times when we're filming where it's just like, we're just gonna all try to keep up with Connor Ryan today.

Paddy: So fast.

Ellen: It just, it's unfair when you're six five and everyone else in your group is not, and also you're an endurances athlete. Like he's just a

Paddy: Yeah, he, well, here's the deal though that I would like to point out is that I too am six five, but Connor [00:18:00] is made out of like bird bones and like sinewy muscle, and I am made out of. Sausage, gravy and donuts. Like, like,

Ellen: we're all, we're all different people with different strengths.

Paddy: Thank you. Thank you. That felt like a very nice attaboy for me. Ellen, I appreciate you.

Ellen: No, I feel that way too. 'cause there's no amount of training I could ever do to actually like keep up with Connor at the pace he wants to go at for any of these uphill sports.

Paddy: you should start putting rocks in his backpack.

Ellen: I know something, .

The only thing about doing something like that to him, it will only make him stronger.

Paddy: I know.

PAUSE PAUSE

of the many things that you love about skiing, tree skiing is your favorite. And I love the way that you describe it. You describe it as dancing through the trees and feeling extra connected to everything around you and within you, why and what are you picking up on in those moments?

Ellen: Growing up in the Seattle area and genetically being from southeast Alaska in the rainforest, like trees are just my thing. If I [00:19:00] go to a place that doesn't have trees, like I'm just immediately like, what in the hell is going on?

Like this is so weird. I need trees around me. And so then to combine like this methodology, this tool I found for connection with the world, being skiing and then being in the ecosystem I'm most connected with, it's just this immediate moment of like everything feels right where I'm supposed to be is just skiing through the trees.

And I got really lucky that Stevens pass growing up and skiing, like it's a fantastic place to go to ski in the trees, to ski some really steep trees that are very well spaced but not like fully gladed out. That really shaped the kind of skier that I am of growing up in those spaces. I also have found and learned about myself every time that I think I'm a very reactive person.

I'm not a very like. Good at visualizing things, especially if it comes to skiing. Like I know so many professional athletes, a photographer will be like, take a turn here. And they'll like visualize their plan of how they're gonna ski the line

for me, if I try to do that, I get so in my head that I feel like I ski terrible. 'cause I just was so focused on trying [00:20:00] to figure out where to ski that I wasn't like present in my own body. And so for me, that's something that I think tree skiing just helps is to be like, okay, it's just always pick your own adventure.

you're just gonna have to find your way through these trees. And maybe sometimes you're on a track, somebody else has taken and other times you dip off into fresh snow. Nobody skied you can just interact with the trees. In a way that feels so different than if you're just like skiing a groomer or skiing in the alpine

MUSIC FADE UP

Paddy: It sounds like you're saying tree skiing strengthens your intuition and your trust in your intuition and your ability to artfully handle whatever is coming at you that you don't expect

Ellen: yeah, I absolutely, and like gets me outta my own head.

So

Paddy: how do you take that into things off Mountain?.

Ellen: oh, I think I just need to remember that I'm my biggest obstacle, that my brain is my biggest obstacle. That if I try to overthink something or pre-plan something, that it doesn't give enough room to just respond to what actually does happen. To be a little bit [00:21:00] less.

Type A. 'cause I think at my core I kind of am more of a type A person and have had plans through my life about where things were going. And then some of those plans worked out and some of them didn't 'cause Covid hit and then I met Connor and then all of a sudden I'm a professional skier, which was not the plan.

And I had to be a little bit more reactive and have tried to learn how to be just more like accepting of whatever's gonna happen and then responding to it instead of me trying to be like, well, I knew I was gonna go do this research project and I want to study this. And like just allowing myself to be more present just more in my own body instead of in my own head.

And tree skiing allows me to be in my body and not in my head.

Paddy: In those off mountain moments, is it as unconscious as the artful reactions of tree skiing, or do you have to like take a calming breath and remind yourself , okay, I had these plans but this is just like tree skiing. I can handle the new thing that's happening

Ellen: I have to remind myself a lot more. It's way less intuitive. I hold such an [00:22:00] attachment to the plan, to my own detriment that I either have to tell myself from the beginning, this isn't actually the plan and like we're not committed to this being the plan and set my own expectations.

Or in the moment when it feels like the plan's changed and I kind of freak out, then I have to remind myself . It's okay. You're gonna figure this out. It's not as big of a deal as you're making it inside of your head and go through the steps and try to just see it out and maybe what will come out the other side is way better than even what you anticipated happening in the first place.

MUSIC IN THE CLEAR FOR A BEAT

PADDY VO: More from Ellen Bradley after the break.

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Paddy: So this is very true for connection to nature, but specifically connection to trees, woods, forests specifically shows up all over creative culture. It's in art, it's in music, it's in poetry, it's in paintings, you name it, it's got it. And anyone who has walked in the woods, I feel like can definitely pick up on the fact of the wood wide web. The trees are definitely talking to each other. Do [00:23:00] you feel closer to that wavelength than the average person?

Ellen: I don't know where the average person feels like they sit in that wavelength. I think being in these new ecosystems to me and interacting with species that are new I feel like I'm still trying to find my plugin to these spaces. Versus like, if you throw me into a forest and the cascades, I'm gonna feel really plugged in and comfortable.

I think it's a practice you actually have to cultivate. For me that's always looked like introducing myself to the species. And so if I, if I'm out there and , I don't know what a moss species is, my science brain is like, okay, I'm gonna go to a guidebook. I'm gonna figure out what plant species it is. I want to learn as much about it, like on paper, and then I want to go to it and learn as much as I can from it as an individual or as a community or whatever it is. The more I can understand a plant or an animal or whatever it is, the better. I can get in tune with what it is we need to talk about. But for me, What I've been taught is when you go out into a spot as an indigenous person, you don't want to talk to these plants in English. You wanna talk to them in [00:24:00] your native language. But when I'm in Colorado, I'm like, these trees have never heard Lingít. Like what am I? Sometimes I still do it and sometimes I'm like, but I'm speaking just as foreign language to these trees not being on my homelands as I would if I was speaking English.

And so it complicates that relationship that I'm able to build. And maybe sometimes I have to look for nonverbal ways to get more in tune and understand that relationship. But when I'm on my homelands, I am trying my best to do as much of the language that I know in order to relate.

Paddy: What can a guy, you know, a fuzzy face white boy like myself, who does not know any, language other than nasally pronouncing vowels, because I'm from Chicago. , what can a guy like me do to better appreciate or tap into that wavelength? When I'm hiking and running and skiing and mountain biking,

Ellen: I don't know if I have the answers. I think you have to feel it for yourself and figure out what ways you feel like you can communicate. 'cause I think similar to how like humans have different [00:25:00] communication styles, different ecosystems you go into, different species have different communication styles, Similar to like you're having a hard time talking with someone and figuring out how to communicate what you need to, and you try different things. I think you ought to go into these ecosystems that you want and desire to have connection with and just try some different things and see what works.

Paddy: I think When I go outside, what I try to do is I look up to the sky and I say thank you. I tell the people that I'm with, if I'm with anybody, that I love them, especially before I drop in to a ski line or, mountain biking downhill.

And then I am a firm believer that, laughter is a prayer. , and it is, its own form of song Does that ring true for you as well, in addition to speaking? the language of your people?

Ellen: Yeah, I think so. I think everything you laid out it's important to be aware and be cognizant that all these things that you do when you're out on a trail, when you're out in nature, whatever it is, you are doing it and you are being observed doing it.

[00:26:00] And as long as you feel like in yourself the things you are doing, you are comfortable with someone observing you doing and to go beyond that, the things you're doing, you're stoked, the land is observing you doing, then I think that's a great first step

Paddy: I think it's not dissimilar into how you would act if you were invited into somebody's home me as a mid-westerner, like if somebody invites me over to their home, I can't show up empty handed like I have to.

It's a reciprocal thing, right? Like, I have to say like, thank you for having me over. And I think it's, similar in hopefully how I go outside

Ellen: Absolutely. And I think that expression of gratitude, however you feel is best to you, I think that's an important step of it, of this acknowledgement that you wouldn't have been able to have the experience that you either just had or are seeking to have. In a space if it weren't for all the relatives around you that are creating this space that now you get to experience making sure you show up to into spaces with a gracious heart and expressing that gratitude is so important.

'cause if you [00:27:00] don't, and I feel like we've all been in a space where we've gone into the outdoors and we were like feeling chaotic in our brains or whatever it's, or we're dealing with something and like usually those are the times something goes wrong.

Paddy: Yeah.

Ellen: hard for me to not believe that part of the reason things go wrong is 'cause you weren't already showing up into the space being grateful.

And

Paddy: Hmm.

Ellen: You were unable to like be present in the space and be aware of your surroundings because you were so focused on you and what's going on in yourself that you were less likely to be aware.

Paddy: Has that happened when you've gone into the ocean as well?

Ellen: Yeah, a hundred percent. there's this time I was in PR with my friends, I went for a conference for a science conference and we went out to this awesome beach and I brought my snor snorkel year.

'cause I love snorkeling, like I love fish, I love identifying things in the ocean. I could spend a whole day in the ocean. And I was so excited 'cause it'd been so long since I'd gotten to snorkel that I just like immediately got to the beach, ran in the water and started snorkeling and all of a sudden I went to feel my ears.

'cause I'm always wearing earrings and I was missing an earring and I was like, I've been snorkeling for so long. this earring could be literally [00:28:00] anywhere. I could have panicked. And I decided to take a second. I went back onto the beach and I took off the earring that I still had, and I put it in my bag to keep it safe. And I walked back out to the water and I was like, you know what? I'm so sorry. , I just immediately ran into this water without any acknowledgement, any questioning about whether or not I was allowed to do this. I just acted so entitled out of excitement and out of a space that wasn't intentionally negative, but I didn't acknowledge the sovereignty of the ocean in this place that I had never been before and hadn't met and didn't know the relatives of.

And so I acknowledged it and I told it who I was, where I came from, what my intentions were, and I apologized and I said, I, there's any chance I can get that ying back, that would be great. And I start snorkeling around again. Not necessarily looking for the earring.

And then I looked up at our, my friends on the beach and I just was like, I'm so grateful to be here in this moment. Like, I love the ocean so much. This is filling my entire heart. And I kid you not, I looked down and the earring was right below me.

Paddy: Oh my

Ellen: I'm not even kidding. Like just [00:29:00] directly below

Paddy: beautiful.

Ellen: And it was like a silver earring.

That's this feather earring that has, , formline, which is northwest coast native art,

Paddy: So it looks like everything in the ocean

Ellen: Yeah, it looks like. And also there were all kinds of barracuda around. The one thing to know about Barracuda is they're very attracted to silver. And I looked right down and it is below me, . I can't tell you how many times I've had moments like that

Paddy: And every single time that happens to me, it's always an earring that goes missing.

Listen, I'm not trying to take anything away from these beautiful moments. 'cause I think they're beautiful, but I also feel like maybe the land and your relatives are saying like, Ellen, stop wearing earrings out here.

Ellen: Absolutely not. That is my, like, that is my thing I've lost many earrings and I found all of them except for two, and the two times I didn't find them. I think I know why,

Paddy: Why?

Ellen: because I wa I never did that moment of full acknowledgement or I never in the moment like gave a proper enough offering to the lane for my presence that it was like, alright, [00:30:00] well I'm keeping this, didn't express enough gratitude, didn't go into the space, grounded in myself, came in either like so gung-ho, excited, like I'm ready to do this thing. Or frustrated in dealing with my own thing in my brain that I never took that step of okay, I'm entering a new space.

And sometimes that acknowledgement looks like verbally acknowledging it. Other times it looks like prayer. Maybe it's like smudging, whatever it is to go into this new space , okay, I'm gonna leave the energy behind that I came in here with and just be aware that this is a whole space with its own sovereignty, with its own spirit, with its own emotional state.

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Paddy: this connection to the land is at the heart of your new film. Let my People Go skiing, the film opens with you describing your fracture, disconnected feeling when you're not in nature, and then contrasting it with this sense of completeness when you are in nature. Describe the details of the why behind that.

Ellen: I think the why is a feeling that I know a lot of indigenous people [00:31:00] feel. As an indigenous person for whatever reason, when we get out on a plane and look out a window, we can't help but picture what the things below us look like before contact.

And I think for us it's because that's who we are as a people. We are a species that has been in a depth of a relationship with the land that you don't see in our modern dominant society. when we get the ability to be back in the land, especially on our own homelands, in a place that feels less touched by colonization, 'cause really so many places and almost all places have been.

There's just this sense of like wholeness and completeness that I feel in that space that when I, I didn't grow up in downtown Seattle. I grew up north in like a suburb, but when I'm in a space like downtown Seattle and surrounded by concrete, I can't help but not immediately go to like, okay, like what did this whole estuary look like before they came in and bulldozed it and paved it and rerouted all the river systems and created all these [00:32:00] lakes that are now what you see as Seattle.

what did that look like before? it's hard for your brain to just not go there when you're a person that so like desires what the land was before

Paddy: In the film you also talk about how you feel, your ancestors, how you feel, your relatives in nature. Is this something that's available to everyone or specifically indigenous people? And if it's not available to folks who are, non-native, is there an equivalent for others?

Ellen: I don't think I'm the person that could speak on that because I think I only know my own experience I don't think my experience is necessarily, exclusive or I don't think it's something that couldn't happen to people who are non-indigenous to Turtle Island or North America. , but I know that that's how I've experienced it is on my homelands.

And being away from the city and being very present in a spot. I don't want to say that I know whether or not that is possible for non-indigenous people because I [00:33:00] just, I don't know. I, I choose to believe that it is, but I don't have the answers of how that would be or what that would look like for non-indigenous people.

Paddy: well allow me to wax poetic for a second here. , because something kind of sparked in me while I was watching the film. You know, I've had this dream to ski in Ireland for years to go to this place where my family is from, meet family I've never met, and to bring an important piece of me skiing to the place where I am ultimately from, but don't know.

And I've never been there before. Now I'm not drawing an equivalence between the Irish and the indigenous people of America. How my family ended up in Chicago is far different than how your family ended up in Seattle. But I do feel a kinship with the feeling I'm getting from you, from the film, from this conversation, that there's this inherent pull that humans have toward the concept of home and the search for a solid sense of belonging and a sense of an [00:34:00] understanding of how things started maybe in order to understand how things are going to be.

Is that the path that you feel that you're on right now?

Ellen: I think in a lot of ways, yeah. and something you said that made me think a little bit more about your first question of this like sense of belonging. I do think that the displacement that I feel, the displacement you feel of being away from home, I think that displacement is the same.

And I think for a lot of folks of European descent. I think that displacement goes back further, right? 'cause there are indigenous people of Europe, there are still indigenous people of Europe. There were past indigenous peoples of Europe. that colonization happened in a lot of spaces in Europe first.

And people were displaced from their sense of actual home, their sense of relationship to the land. And so I do think on that side of it, the feeling is coming from the same place. The feeling might not be the same, the feeling might not be as present day to day, depending on how long ago that was. But I [00:35:00] do think , that feeling is a very human experience that I think is one of the absolute worst parts of this colonized world we live in is that we are all trying to seek out that feeling.

And yet so many people don't have the ability to do that because we haven't been. Shone a way to do that,

Paddy: so what does that concept of home mean to you?

Ellen: In the film, I refer to Áak'w Ḵwáan aaní, so Juneau area, both as home and as my homelands. to me it's this place that if I were to die today, that's where I would want my body taken. It's this place that

if any big events happen in my life, I would want it to be there.

It's this connection and it's a connection. I think like so many Alaska natives who don't live in Alaska, feel even if you've never lived in Alaska, if you weren't born and raised in Alaska, maybe you moved there for a time. No matter what it is. So many of us just know that Alaska is home.

It's where we come from. It's where over all these years our genetics have been born of the earth to be. And I just think there's [00:36:00] this like longing for home that I have that I know many other people have that I could never find that same feeling as I do when I'm in Juneau or in Southeast Alaska .

Paddy: Do you think that sense of home, that sense of, belonging , and. Essentially Sure. Footedness, is that what you're trying to give to the indigenous people, especially the kids that you try to get out on snow on skis?

Ellen: Yes, that's it. Because skiing has been this tool for connection to the land as this relationship builder. I believe it can be that for other people. I truly believe that we can find some of that community by getting our people back on the land in the winter.

Because even if there's politics, even if there's drama, even if there's issues between people in the community, if we can spend more time with the land, the land can also and is our community. the more we can get people back into these spaces in the winter, I believe the more we are able to allow people to find that sense of belonging, of [00:37:00] home, of comfort in theirselves, .

I help run this internship through the Sea Alaska Heritage Institution. And it's, , an internship between SHI and A-E-L-M-P, which is the Alaska Electric it's a utility company in Juneau and.

Historically through the internship we've only had young Alaska native women who are in high school. , and it's teaching kids how to backcountry ski, how to read a forecast, how to write a forecast, how to dig snow pits, how to move in the back country, which is really important.

Ellen: in Juneau because all of the power lines are in avalanche paths. So we need people who understand avalanches and snows in order to keep the power running in Juneau. And the first year we helped run this internship, it was this awesome high school student, Jocelyn, watching her sometimes, like she loves skiing more than I do, which is so awesome to see. 'cause I thought I loved skiing a lot. And to watch her make her way out into the back country for the first time and I watched her struggle at first and once it finally started to click, it just was this beautiful moment of like, oh you are an incredible human being.

You are wicked smart. And [00:38:00] now you have this skill of combining something you really love and showing you some of the other skills associated with it that could lead you to a long career. This is why I'm doing what I'm doing, is so that more people like Jocelyn, can.

Try it and figure out if it is something that they enjoy and then start to see how this passion of theirs behind a way to move their body could actually become a lifetime activity. Whether that's just always recreationally and for fun or for work or to contribute to your community, whatever it is. And now this year we have two new interns and I'm gonna get up there in a couple weeks and get to ski with them as well.

And I can't wait to see what they think of this experience. ' .

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MUSIC FADES UPS

Paddy: , what's your advice for folks who wanna change the way that they are going outside, want to perhaps adopt this slower and more intentional approach to the outdoors?

Ellen: Read braiding Sweetgrass,, which is Robin Wall Kimer first book. , listen to podcasts like this or other podcasts with other indigenous or [00:39:00] bipoc athletes in the outdoor spaces and their perspectives of how to be on the land. the best piece of advice I probably could give would be like, physically slow down.

Just try it for once. Just try going to a space you have been to before, move through it at a slower pace. Observe every single tree or plant or animal that you get to interact with, and at the end of the day, reflect on what that meant to you. If it doesn't change some level of your experience, I would honestly be kind of shocked.

The point is to, better develop a relationship and be a better relative to this place that gives you so much, right? Because if this is one of your favorite trails to go get your quick and dirty fitness out, like it's giving you so much that the absolute least you could do for it is to.

Slow down and actually get to know it .

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MUSIC IN THE CLEAR FOR A BEAT

Paddy: The final ramble, one piece of gear you cannot live without.

Ellen: Ooh, my extra tufts, it's muddy in the parking lot right now.

Paddy: Best outdoor snack.

Ellen: Oh, smoked salmon, [00:40:00] hands down, wind dried salmon or just like salmon candies. I need salmon with me at all times.

Paddy: salmon candies are a thing.

Ellen: It's like candied salmon.

It's like sugary and salty.

Paddy: a hard kit? Is it like chewy? Is it dried?

Ellen: yeah, they're dried. Sometimes they come in little cubes or they're like strips. They're tasty.

Paddy: next time I see you, I gotta try some, salmon gummy bears.

Ellen: They're not gummy bears. They're just

Paddy: Oh they're not?!

Ellen: They're just like candied salmon. you'll love it, I

Paddy: Okay. I'm down for it. what is your hottest outdoor hot take?

Ellen: Oh, heli. Skiing's not hot.

Paddy: Mic drop.

Ellen: My drop. I hate heli skiing. Don't do it. , don't watch films about heli skiing, watch films about people.

Paddy: I like your style.

Ellen: Will do.

Paddy: OUTRO

Ellen Bradley is a Lingit, pro skier, activist and advocate, scientist, and filmmaker. Wanna watch her new film Let My People Go Skiing? The answer is yes, and Ellen is screening the film all over. She says the best way to find a screening near you is to watch for announcements on her instgram [00:41:00] at Ellen G Bradley.

The �����ԹϺ��� Podcast is hosted and produced by me, Paddy O'Connell. But you can call me PaddyO. Storytelling support and miniature version of Larry David provided by Micah Abrams. Music and Sound Design by Robbie Carver. And booking and research by Maren Larsen.

Hey, dear audience memebers, yeah you, do you like what you hear, have an idea for a guest, want to send us a love note? Well, you can. Email us guest nominations and thoughts to outside podcast At outside inc dot com. We are, afterall, making this show for the enjoyment of your earholes.

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